


The Weight We Carry

by EllieL



Category: A Discovery of Witches (TV), All Souls Trilogy - Deborah Harkness
Genre: F/M, Intimacy, Post-Chelm, Sex, The Book of Life - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-07 07:52:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17361980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieL/pseuds/EllieL
Summary: “I want you to know. I can’t tell you,” he shook his head, barely perceptible if her cheek hadn’t been against his, “but I want you to know.”





	The Weight We Carry

Since Chelm, she’d let him set the boundaries of their intimacy. It had been clear that his control was fragile, warring with desire, and while she was beginning to push him a little outside his comfort zone in their daily life, alone together she allowed him to set the boundaries. Those had seemed to be primarily focused on her pleasure and had been easy to accept.  
  


Tonight, as his lips slid up her still-trembling body, she gasped out a “yes” as his lips trailed across the silvery crescent over her heart vein. He’d never taken without invitation, hadn’t at all since nearly a year ago, when she’d begged him to drink just a little, to understand how she felt carrying their children. It must have taken massive willpower, but he’d refused more than that sip while she was pregnant, and he wouldn’t touch her while she nursed their children, not wanting to tax her health, he’d said. And he’d not trusted himself since Benjamin.  
  


But she had seen the desire and fear warring within him, especially these last few weeks, as life had returned to a kind of equilibrium. His control had been careful, tight, the sure sign he was reining in his desire because of his fear. She knew he needed this to recover himself, as much as he needed anything.  
  


The desire and fear both darkened his eyes at her request, and he held her gaze for a long moment. Then, so swiftly she was barely sure what was happening, he was inside her and had flipped them over so she was astride his lap. The sensation was enough to have her near climax again, a few strong thrusts sending her tumbling. Gasping, she braced herself on his shoulders and gave herself over to the feeling. At the same time, he raised his head just a fraction, and closed his teeth over the vein at her breast.  
  


As she felt him drink from her, drawing deeply, she felt him still, even as a wave seemed to crash over her own body. Struggling to focus, she looked down at him as his lips left her,  his face awestruck. “ _ Dieu _ , Diana.”  
  


She dropped her head and kissed him, tasting herself on his lips. “I know. My blood has felt different. I wasn’t sure….” She kissed him again to avoid finding the words to finish her thought.  
  


Matthew kissed her slowly, deeply, then shifted under her, bending his head to catch the bead of blood that had trailed down the side of her breast. He followed it to the source, and drank deeply from her for just a moment. Then his mouth stilled, and he pulled her tighter against him, arms around her shoulders and hips, supporting her as his own hips sought a frantic pace.  
  


Diana could not match his vampyrically fast rhythm, so instead she relaxed in to it, holding him close as he finally allowed months of tightly controlled desire to overwhelm him. His lips pressed a kiss to the scar over her vein just before he cried out with a final shudder, his whole body tensing around her.   
  


Running her hands through his hair, she caught her breath as he rested his head against her shoulder. For timeless minutes he held her tightly against him, as if his desire might never be sated. But her human hips eventually protested, and after a kiss to his forehead, she shifted subtly against him.  
  


He relaxed his embrace enough for her to move beside him, before he lay down on the bed, pulling her with him. On their sides, he held her close again. “You’re all of the answers.” Tenderly he kissed her, hands skimming across the scarred expanse of her back.   
  


“If only I knew all of the questions.”  
  


_ “I encompass the whole work of creation, and all knowledge is hidden in me. _ ”  
  


He was still as a statue when she kissed him rather than respond to his quote from the  _ Aurora Consurgens _ . But his hand slid up her arm, tangling in her hair and holding her close. If she hadn’t been so near, she wouldn’t have even felt the breath of his words, let alone heard them.  
  


“I want you to know. I can’t tell you,” he shook his head, barely perceptible if her cheek hadn’t been against his, “but I want you to know.”  
  


She pulled away, just far enough to look at him without crossing her eyes. His own, normally such a barometer of his emotions, were closed tight and she felt a faint tremor go through his body. To reassure him, she pressed herself as close to him as she could, knowing she too would need reassurance as she shared his experiences over the last months.  
  


“Okay.” It was barely a whisper in his ear, not even forceful enough to ruffle his hair. She wove a hand through it instead, as one might comfort a child. It would have been impossible to miss his deep, shuddering breath as she trailed kisses across his face until she reached the center of his forehead. With one light kiss of warning, she gave him one last chance to pull away if he was not truly ready to share with her.   
  


When he did not, she let her third eye open and placed her kiss where his would have been.  Almost immediately she was nearly overwhelmed, not with the physical pain she’d expected but the nearly crushing weight of guilt at what had been wrought by Benjamin. To women, to children, to witches, to Philippe. What he’d drawn out of Matthew and taunted him with, memories and dreams about her that wounded him far deeper than any mere physical injury.  
  


The physical she had known, had traced every tendon and bone with a gentle magic in the days after they’d saved him, not wanting to miss any injury or wound, and had prepared herself for what she might known when he finally shared with her. The psychological was not surprising, but the depth of it threatened to dredge up all that he carried on his shoulders, centuries of lives lost and tallied, things she suspected, even knew on some level. But she knew this was not the time for all those tales to be shared, even as they floated in the crepuscular space below the surface of memory.   
  


Her lips moved then, down to his lips for one chaste kiss. “Oh Matthew.”   
  


What he had really wanted her to know was what had truly almost broken him; that at least she understood, the weight of his fifteen hundred years made painfully real to her. She felt it settle onto her shoulders now, too, the burden he’d kept to himself for so long.  
  


There was so much she wanted to tell him. Instead she said simply, “I love you.” Wrapping him as tightly in her embrace as she could, she had no other words to offer him. He returned her embrace and buried his head in her neck, body shaking as if sobbing, as if in relief.  
  


Only after he stilled beside her, long minutes later, did she realize he’d fallen asleep. She was still unsure how much sleep a vampire needed, how much of his nocturnal working hours are merely efficiency and how much they were because he felt unable to rest. The last time she’d seen him in truly restful slumber was at Sept-Tours, what felt like a lifetime ago. Cautiously, she moved just enough to pull the sheets up over them, before settling back against him and falling asleep herself.

 

***

 

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Allen Ginsberg's "Song"


End file.
